A Cambridge teenager who survived two years of extreme bullying will trek to the North Pole to raise money for the charity that helped her.

Bea Edwards, 18, from Cambridge, joined Red Balloon in 2010 after two long years of severe and systematic bullying at school.

The bullying started when Bea was just 11, and after a prolonged period of being teased, tripped up, called names, humiliated and ostracised, she was no longer able to face the daily abuse and stopped attending school.

At home, her body and health gave up on her – she used to stay in bed all day and even began using a wheelchair.

After numerous failed interventions, in desperation, Bea’s mother found the Red Balloon Learner Centre in Cambridge, which helps severely bullied or traumatised children who have self-excluded from mainstream education to re-engage with society.

Red Balloon’s recovery programme combines academic tuition and wellbeing provision in equal measure, to restore the young person’s self-esteem, get them back on track academically, and support them back into mainstream education, training or employment.

Bea said: “What I loved about Red Balloon was that it was tailored to my interests.

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“It was flexible and if I was too tired or ill to come in, I didn't miss out – we picked up from where we had left off the last time.

“There were comfy sofas where I could sit and read, and friendly teachers who understood me and my condition.”

Seven years on, Bea is now a confident and strong young woman doing work experience at a pathology lab in Oxford – her research will be published in a paper in six months’ time, before she has even started her degree.

She will begin studying at the Royal Veterinary College in September this year.

In 2015, Bea took on the challenging Shackleton expedition to the South Pole, becoming the third youngest person to trek the 100-mile journey, aged 17.

Bea Edwards with fellow team members in the South Pole

Bea said: “I wasn’t initially planning on doing it. My dad had signed up to a talk about trekking to the South Pole, and I planned to go along with him.

“But he ended up not being able to go to the talk as he shattered his knee, so I went alone.